


ants and grasshoppers

by mikkal



Series: junk in my trunk (and my documents folder) [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Incomplete
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 10:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11011908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkal/pseuds/mikkal
Summary: The so-called hero the Flash is just a no good vigilante who likes to get in The Hero Movement's way. Iris won't take his shit and Eddie thinks he's fluffy.a permanently incomplete westhallen AU





	ants and grasshoppers

Her knuckles are scraped raw by the time she comes home, her feet aching, her face throbbing, there feels like what might be a rock embedded in her shoulder from her ungraceful slide against the road just an hour ago. She steps into the living room and doesn’t even have to turn on the light to know he’s sitting on the couch like the melodramatic jerk he is.  
  
“What do you want?”

“Your help.” His voice is distorted, echoing.

She scoffs. “If you want to team up with someone, go register and get assigned. I don’t work with vigilantes.”

“Plea -.” He cuts himself off, well that’s interesting. “Do you know how many people get injured or killed in the time for you to be assigned teams and positions? The Hero Movement is a scam, just a way to keep you in control.”

Iris closes her eyes, sighing. She drops her bag in the foyer and heads to the kitchen, letting the dim light over the stove guide her movements. “We’ve been over this, Flash. Let it go.”

“In twenty seconds twenty people can die,” he argues. He just can’t let it go, can he? “Twenty seconds.”

She _slams_ a fork on the counter, her blood boiling. “ _That’s not the point!_ ” she half-shouts. “Teaching. Control. Saving people, _the responsible way_. You rush in head first without a plan. Do you know how much property damage you cause in each fight you interfere with? How many people are put at risk when you don’t have backup? Without the Movement hundreds of us would be without control of our powers.” She sees him open his mouth to argue again and this time she throws the fork at him. He dodges easily. “You ask me for help then you insult the very people I work with, the very people I’m _friends_ with. Asshole.”

This time he pauses, hand in the air like he’s asking her to stop. Then his shoulders sag, his head dropping.

In a blink he’s gone, leaving Iris alone in her kitchen.  
  


* * *

  
  
Eddie comes home when she’s already in bed, the comforter curled up around her shoulders, her heels touching her ass. He’s got remnants of the mission in the bruise on his temple, the split in his lip. As team leader, though, his debrief lasts a lot longer than hers and they learned long ago that if she waits for him at HQ then she’s just going to get pulled on another mission...or fall asleep in the locker room.

He climbs into bed, curling around her from behind. He kisses her hair, whispering good-night, probably thinking she’s asleep already, and presses his forehead against the back of her neck. He heaves a tired sigh.

Iris doesn’t want to bring it up tonight. “The Flash came by again.” But she does anyway.

This time his sigh is more exasperated. “What did he want this time?”

“Our help.”

“With what?”

She bites her lip. “I didn’t give him the chance to ask.” She shifts and flips over until they’re face to face. His eyes are bright blue even in the darkness of 2 am. “Why do I want to, though? Help him? He’s a vigilante. But there’s something about him.”

Eddie wraps his arms around her, pulling her closer. “Probably the same reason he keeps coming to us for help. There’s just something about us.”

Iris grins against his cheek. “Maybe.”  


* * *

  
  
“Messenger, report.”

Iris coughs out some dust, choking a little at the chalky taste coating her mouth. “All clear here, Cobalt. Clean-up crew’s got one hell of a mess to deal with. One injured, paramedics don’t think they need to take her to the ER.”

“Roger, Messenger. Light, report.”

Lightning sparks on the corner of 22nd and Mann. Yellow, white, a crackle in the air. She tilts her head, squinting. Then blinks, once, twice, three times, and the mess on that corner is clears in enough time for an ambulance to go screaming through the clearing, heading from Linda’s sector.

She blinks again and the mess recedes even more. Closer and closer until she can make out the red-clad figure dashing around the street.

Iris steps forward out of the shadows, cupping her hands around her mouth. “ _HEY_!”

The Flash comes to a screeching halt, literally. Skid marks trail his heels and he stumbles face first into a put-together wall. A little bit of guilt churns low in her belly as she rushes to his side. He puts up a hand to stop her, cupping his nose with the other. Red, darker than his suit, drips down his chin.

“ _Ow_ ,” he groans.

“Sorry,” she says, kind of not really sorry, not anymore. Do the words ‘pain in the ass’ mean anything? Really. Look up The Flash and that’s his definition. “You know, after a year of being active you’d think you would’ve mastered stopping by now.”

“I can stop perfectly fine,” he grumbles, voice distorted again but a little more human sounding. “It’s when someone decides to _materialize out of the fucking shadows_ that I have a little trouble.”

“Thought you had fast reflexes?”

“Screw you.”

Iris crosses her arms, leaning against the wall, watching him as he wipes the blood from his chin. She narrows her eyes at the shake in his hand, the tremble in his arm. Nope, she’s not worried, shut up.

But hey, she’s human.

(and she’s worried)

“What do you want?” Iris asks. “Here to request another favor?”

He rolls his eyes. She can actually see them for once. Still fuzzy and she can’t tell what his eye color is, but his vibrations are softer this time around.

“You made yourself pretty clear last time.” He dusts off his gloves. “I’m just here for clean up crew, Messenger. Don’t mind me.” He frowns, close to a sneer. “Won’t bother you again.”

Her hair flies around her head as he takes off, leaving the lingering taste of lightning behind. She stands there, feeling suddenly cold. Suddenly alone.

* * *

  
  
  
The apartment smells like lemon chicken and Eddie can’t even enjoy it properly. He moves the ice off his thigh, hissing as the throbbing renews with a new drum beat. It had been broken only a few hours ago, he’s lucky it’s just an extremely deep bruise now. Thigh bones are a bitch.

He drops his head on the back of the couch, closing his eyes and resting the ice back on his thigh. He still has about twenty minutes ‘til the slow cooker is done with the chicken, the only problem is he might start falling asleep before then. Luckily it automatically turns off.

Iris is in Bialya with Kendra and Linda on a mission that’s already running a day late, but he’s not too worried. Team Lead has a tendency to get him perks on privileged information. It’s just a delay that will sort out quickly. But, God, he misses her.

And his leg hurts.

Ugh.

“Parasite did that?”

Eddie jumps at the unexpected voice, deep and reverberating. The Flash stands in the foyer, leaning against the wall with ankles crossed and his arms folded over his chest.

“How the hell do you keep getting in here?” he demands, staggering to his feet. He lists to the side a little, keeping weight off his injured leg.

The Flash shrugs. “We all have secrets. It wouldn’t be fair to tell you that.”

“What are you doing here?” Eddie resists the urge to go for his gun. The Flash has never attacked anyone from the Hero Movement unless he had been attacked first (those who did attack without cause got an official reprimand, though Eddie knows he’s the only one who files them, the others don’t care about working relationships with vigilantes).

He shrugs again, not moving an inch otherwise. “Had nothing better to do. I know Iris is out on a mission. I saw the fight on the news. I wanted to see how you were.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow, ignoring the warmth suddenly in his chest. (it doesn’t matter that he cares, not really) “It’s 10 o’clock on a Saturday night. You’re young. Do you really have nothing better to do?”

The Flash laughs. “It’s 10 o’clock on a Saturday night,” he repeats almost teasingly. “You’re young. You’re attractive. What’s your excuse?”

“Um.” He gestures to his thigh.

“…Right.” The Flash finally moves, rubbing the back of his neck with a glove clad hand.

Just then the timer dings on his slow cooker, automatically turning off. Eddie glances at the kitchen before back to the Flash. He’s no longer leaning against the wall, half turned towards the door. The more he shows up the more Eddie gets a ‘sad-rained-on-stray-cat’ vibe from him.

That’s his inner reasoning for why the next few words come out of his mouth: “Do you want some?”

The Flash freezes. “Uh.”

“It’s lemon chicken. Iris’ mom’s recipe. It makes about eight and we’ve only managed to reduce it to four. There’s plenty.”

“If you’re sure.” He sounds hesitant, but he’s already stepping forward, the vibrations around his body becoming less. He’s still fuzzy around the edges though.

He’s going to regret telling Iris about this later, but he nods as he turns heel and limps towards the kitchen. “Come on.”  


* * *

  
  
The first time Iris met the Flash he’d save three people from an explosion she’d been two seconds too late for. The delay hadn’t been her fault.

Really.

The intel had been bad at first and took their techs a while to decipher it to make sure it wasn’t bad.   


* * *

  
  
She juggling a brown bag of groceries from Bobby’s in one arm and a gallon of milk in the other hand while trying to open her door when she meets him for the first time.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Barry ends up moving into the apartment across from Eddie and Iris. They all become friends and, eventually, more than that. The Flash joins in on some of Iris' and Eddie's missions and they realize they each have good points and are stubborn in others.
> 
> eventually, Iris decides that maybe if the Flash is scared/worried/angry about something and has been trying for a while to get her help, maybe she should help. Turns out the person in charge of the Hero Movement - Harrison Wells - is actually Eobard Thawne, Eddie's evil descendent from the future who is working for a legion of super villains to bang together the multiverse to shape it to their liking. Blah blah, the whole plane fails, Barry gets hurt a lot, Eddie gets hurt a lot, Iris gets hurt a lot. Cisco and Hartley figure out how to save the multiverse, but Iris is the one who ends up having to implement it and Barry almost sacrifices himself. Eddie gets shot like a dumbass but lives.


End file.
